Luke, Thalia and Annabeth before camp half blood!
by Twerd
Summary: If you always wondered what it was like before Luke was evil, Annabeth had a yankees cap, and Thalia was a tree, here's the story...
1. Chapter 1

Thalia set her pack down on the grass, and slumped over, lying staring up at the stars.

"LUKE!" she yelled, "Get your behind into action, I want to go to sleep!"

"Wait…up…" came the heavy reply, as Luke limped over the top of the hill, and practically fell down it, landing in a kind of crumpled up position. Thalia laughed, as she unzipped her pack and took out a couple of apples and a squashed looking sandwich.

"You look lively." He glared at her, but she bit into her apple and ignored him completely.

"Hey, we've been walking all day." He opened his own pack, took out a chocolate bar and ripped off the wrapper. "And we're not exactly going anywhere. If we were actually _going_ somewhere then there would be a need to walk so _far_, but as we're not-"

"Luke," Thalia interrupted, "shut up."

Luke scowled, and glared up at the sky. "I hate monsters. Minute we get settled somewhere, bam, we're being attacked by a three headed pig or something."

"There was no three headed pig."

"I _KNOW_!" Luke threw his pack at Thalia, who dodged neatly and grinned. "I'm just making a _point_!"

"Luke, we were camping out by a bog in New Jersey. Don't know about you, but I certainly wasn't settled. "

"Yeah, but…oh, whatever."

Thalia tutted, as she threw her apple core away and tucked into her second. She dug around in her pack again, and withdrew a walkman, jammed the headphones onto her head, and switched it on.

Luke scowled at her again, then laid down on his back and stared at the stars, muttering and pointing to each. He got bored when Thalia got out her music It was depressive stuff, too. All about not fitting in and drugs and stuff. As if he needed more misery in his life.

And speaking of misery-

"Oh, my gods," He said, trying to keep irritation out of his voice. "Thalia."

There was no response. Thoroughly cheesed off now, he whipped of her headphones and yelled in her ear, "THALIA, minotaur, ten o'clock."

Thalia sighed.

"Not freaking AGAIN."

"Freaking again."


	2. Chapter 2

"The thing I hate most," Thalia said, as the silently crept up the hill, away from the beast, which was sniffing around as if he had smelt something good, but couldn't locate it. "Is not that every single freaking place we go some creature that's not even supposed to freaking _exist_ comes and tries to eat us, or that it's usually when I've reached a really good song on my CD; it's that we can't even fight it, because we haven't even got any freaking weapons!"

Luke snorted.

"Oh, right, you mean I've got a dirty great sword and you've got a knife, but, oh yes, of course;" He hit his forehead as if he was being stupid, "We left them at the last place we had to run away from, because you were _certain_ that that was what was leading the freaking monsters to us!" Luke scowled at the ground. "I mean, I've still got the other things- but I can't really go head on with a bull-man with a set of flying baseball boots."

Thalia glanced over her shoulder as they crested the hill. The Minotaur had retreated to the edge of the forest.

"Too right, blonde boy," She turned back to Luke, "Wouldn't be fair on the minotaur, would it?" She poked him, causing one of those weird electric shocks to go through him, which she put entirely down to static in the air.

She had predicted this was coming, ever since she had seen the Minotaur. But she had been so _sure._ What else could it have been, other than the weapons? There was nothing else that would cause a herd of monsters to run after them- except they hadn't showered in about a week.

"I really liked that sword," Luke moaned, rubbing his arm where Thalia had poked it. They had reached the bottom of the hill, and were back on the road, which was depressing, seeing as they'd been on it all day. "It was really good. I killed loads of cockroaches with that, at that manky apartment we stayed in, in New Jersey once, remember?"

"Oh, yes, lets all mourn the great cockroach slayer." Thalia shifter her pack on her shoulder. "Luke, grow up."

"And it was great for that time we celebrated thanksgiving, for chopping up the wood," He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "And that time we stole that steak from that posh restaurant in Florida."

Thalia sighed, and resigned herself to an hour of listening to the endless things that the sword had done for them.

"…And it had such a cool name, Backbiter, I mean, come _on_, how many swords do you come across with such cool names?"

"None…"

"Exactly! And I've had it since forever, since we found it in that Lake when we were in Canada, and that was ages ago, remember the time that weird bird thing just flew away when I poked it at it?"

"Amazing…"

"And that time there was that snake in your hat, and you put it on your head-"

"Luke, shut the freak up, I can hear something," Thalia said suddenly, putting out a hand to stop Luke from continuing to walk. He closed his mouth, forgetting the next sword anecdote, and listening hard.

The road was just twisting past a small brook, which was tinkling along in the dark. There were a few pine trees, and on the other side a large empty field. But the sound Thalia was hearing was coming from the brook. They could both just pick out the distant sound of muffled crying, from someone trying very hard not to be overheard.

"What do you think it is?" Luke whispered. Thalia frowned.

"Monsters don't cry, do they?"

"Well, we've never met sirens; they're supposed to tempt you."

"Yes, but sirens don't play with your conscience by crying, do they?" Thalia replied, and making one of her snap decisions Luke had long since become used to, she silently crept off the roadside and through the pine trees. Luke, feeling a bit like he was tagging along on another 'Thalia and the Let's Help Everyone' epic, followed her.

He caught up with Thalia as she was looking up and down the small stream for the source of the noise. She put a finger to her lips (the international sign for 'shut up'). Luke pulled a stupid looking expression at her (the international sign for 'DUH').

Thalia crept along the side of the water, until she stopped suddenly by a small rock.

The sound stopped suddenly, and the small rock moved. Luke suddenly realised what Thalia had realised five seconds earlier- this was no rock. This was a little kid.

"Hey, kid," She said, sitting down. "What's up?"

The little girl looked up at Thalia, obviously scared. She was white faced and couldn't have been more than six. She had dirty blond hair, and was wearing a Yankees tee shirt, and jeans. She had a dirty pink jumper, which she had wrapped around her small little shoulders.

"Who…who are you?" She whispered. Her voice was high, and quivering.

"I'm Thalia, and this is Luke. Who are you?"

"I'm…I'm Annabeth Chase."


End file.
